At the pens, Celestia bid Marigold farewell, talking with the guard, leaving instruction.
At the doors, she only had to wait a few minutes.
Such doors! Great, stone and well balanced, the work of master masons earth pony and unicorn, opened silently, opened exclusively for her! The doors opening, letting in: the quickened Marigold Mare!
As soon as she was through, they closed behind, silently.
She glanced back only in respect, by morning they would be gone.
She wanted a flash of memory to share later.
Turning, looking ahead walking forward, she didn't see him, walking softly toward the center.
What she did see, was clutter: potted plants, tables, artistic statues and iconography that look like they had seen better days. Made sense, give the new arrivals an idea what the world they were in was like.
When the selections were over the walls would be pulled down and the tools and trinkets put away, maybe sold at auction before the staff went home. She saw some lovely reliefs of Celestia that would be good for her shops decor....if she weren’t on a mission.
Something really piqued her interest.
At first glance she saw some magnificent moon lit statue standing inside that high walled pen the size of a hoofball stadium, standing in the center. She didn't see at first, among the large fragrant yet common, well hoofacured, potted plants.
Breathtaking, but just a statue.
"How charming." Again she rebuffed herself and shook her mane. " Focus ,"she snorted"I am not here to rummage!"
Then, he shook,startling her. The statue was moving! Powdery dust clouds shook in rings from round his coat at his neck and body with his hair and mane.
The pony was alive!
He, for air, gasped, as if breathing in his first breath. Held it, looked in the direction of the high walls, staring up at the wall in front of him, then let the air out with a resigned sigh as if it were his last. His head sinking between his spread front legs, coming close to the ground.
Whatever had been there, high on the wall, was gone.
Only the grizzled guards holding position and watching, those watching from the walls!
But who cared about that?
Finally! At last! A stallion. Her own stallion: a complementary mix of green gray and olive with tinge of copper gleam that shone through his coat and brown main, even in that moonlight coned down on him the center of it spotlight.
The words were native equestrian as they came out ,roughly translated: "Wow!"
Followed in the mind (or overlapping)by:Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!!!!
He flopped down, on his rump, mumbling, ignoring the mare as she spoke.
"....couldn't even save one....?Didn't understand what you memorized.... Oh no not you...! Tetelesti...that's all you had to say Tetelisti to them...but no...!Brother...bat...let go...that's all you...!"
A statue was one thing, but a living breathing being is another. She never thought she actually needed a stallion, that it was another trick of hormons. That once she saw one all of them would fly away and she would at last be "normal".
Now, looking at him through blue eyes she realized it was just the begining, things would never be "normal".
She needed him.
But fate was not lacking mercy.
He fit the bill, fulfilled the promise she heard in the wind from the toy maker's Son that morning, confirming the dream she had had that night before during her restless sleep.
Destiny!
He was perfect!
In her head crowned in yellow gold, highlighted with red and small pink strands that wisped all over,all she could think was
"You're here!"
Just him being there helped her think, quieting the impulsive sea of burning passions, hot. That storm of wild, crooning, emotions, that excitable lunacy of hair pulling and jumping about fools called love, they fled away becoming humid close air, stilled, prepared for her to wade out from the sandy beach of indecision through the warm water to meet him.
That! As her heart pounded inside big grin, wide eyes her face and sockets hurting, breathing through her teeth.
She was up to her sides in it!
She cried inside as she made the first advance slowly moving across the open field of the arena, then quickly covering ground silently, rear to front legs leaping over each other, front then stretching beyond.
"Oh yeah, you got that something I think you understand when I say that something I wanna hold and, and, annnd...!"
Annnd.... a "what"?
Marigold?
It was like Saffron pulling her into that small bakery, telling her what for, like cold water from here bath from that night after she saw that poster.
"Woah!!!"she thought.
She then pulled back on the reigns of her heart and slowed down, just stopping short of him her heart racing, plopping on her rear. She was going to throw herself at him!
"Mustn't do that, mustn't scare him, mustn't disrespect him."
The feelings inside were settling "This is Good!" she was thinking, licked her lips, this mare who owned a flower shop. "Don't have to drowned myself in gallons of scalded parsnip and turnip soup!"
She waited.
And she waited.
Obvious quibble filled his mind, as he mumbled tilling his head back and forth.
New confusing feeling.
He was ignoring her, mumbling.
His mumbling was infuriating, it was becoming maddening.
"I'm right here..."She fumed, she didn't know quite how to take this."All this fuse and wait and now you ignore me?"
She then became ambivalent, "He may be like this for the rest of his life, I might not be able to change this...this mumbling..." as she remembered her mother's warning about marring for the sake of changing the stallion.
"Yeah....."she thought clicking her lips
Then another thought stung her.
"Oh, dear, looking at the wall!"She thought/remembering (A vision of her snoring on her tuffet as Celestia was talking to a guard/ messenger/ something.) how the unicorns gathered atop the wall, watching/waiting for these stallions, too anxious! Waiting for their turn, impatient of waiting for unicorn males!
"Maybe he saw a unicorn maid he fancied!" she chewed her lip.
I know a lot of stallions really go for a pretty, young, trim unicorn. The little....maybe he won't like/want me!"but just before another would have cleared her throat to bring attention to the rube, in an instant the stallion's ears snapped to her swiftly, his head spinning round to faced her, surrounded by a cloud of dust, in a defensive stance .
Those eyes, those strange gray eyes: wild, confused. Being almost out-worldly as they gazed at her, as if upset at the interruption in his conversation.
.....but other eyes were watching, eyes glaring, glinting with mischief, from the bushes, the potted plants!
"No..... I don't see unicorn love in there."she thought.
"Hello…" she said slowly,softly, she sauntered over. She had already imagine and practiced in her mind how it would sound, and the affect was better than she dreamed as his eyes looked at her mouth fascinated at her form words then snapping back, locking onto her blue ones.
Those grey eyes.
It hurt a little to look at them.
Now he was afraid.
He began to breathe rapidly His pupils began to slowly shrink with her every step, his head pulling over his body, one front leg slowly rising. Wrapping his tail around himself.
"What to do?" she remembered what the Doctor and Rose Water had done.
"Move quickly girl." she thought. She closed the gap.
"Tush,tush,tush,tush....shhhh."
She touched the stallion gently with her muzzle on his, so soft, his mouth popping open slack jawed crossed eyes looking to her at muzzles point.
Taking in his strange exotic breath, more feeling hit her,her eye rolled back and she forgot herself.
She moved down his upper body, stopping at his back before his withers, coming back closing her eyes retracing her path breathing him in,her mouth more than her nose, a very masculine stallion.
His voice brought her back. "No...pleease, don't..."he said in strained soft protest, as she touched him, his eyes rolled into his head as his body relaxed and all hooves planted themselves to the ground, seeming to enjoy the touching of his jaw under the cheek, a little taking in her air.
"Yes of course." she thought."Silly girl this was no way to start!"
She had to focus on him, lead him out. Thank goodness she hadn't started rolling on him like a cat!
"Be ready old boy!" said the eyes in the potted shrubbery, watching, digits impatiently waiting in a snapping possition.
She had to begin a relationship! Begin a reportee.
If she was to be committed to him, she had to put him first, and hopefully, he would do the same. She had to find out why he was upset. Just touching him and he would quiver as he held himself back, started breathing through his mouth. "Who knows what he might be thinking!"He was uncomfortable....because, why?
Marigold spoke gently"What's wrong?"She stood in front again, eye contact as he opened his again staring at her with his great grey orbs.
He was silent.
She had to call him something.
"What's wrong, Imago Dei?" a name heard in her dream.
At this he found his tongue with a roar.
Nostrils snorting fire.
Head down shoulders up nearly flat against the ground as if he would pounce, crazy eyes, mouth opened wide teeth bared, exaggerating every foreign word, an angry tongue, angry and furious tongue, directed at her, as if she were a chief conspirator in a plot.
Stallion roughly translated:Aha!
"Celestia can't make me! Are you in league with that Oyarsa of this Sun, moppy lightly drenched little rag popery in flowered scent??!Uh?!"
Now, barely translatable, unrelenting connected nonsense coming from his mouth...not happy to be here...he had rights.
Garbled nonsense!
She was taken aback by his sudden aggression, jumping to a flop coming down as she cocked her head at him.
At this Discord snapped his eagle talon stopping time.
"...annnnd frame! Perfect!" He held his front legs forming a box."
Right here! Right at this moment!" He had a directors costume on."The right moment always comes along!" He walked over to Marigold. "Marigold, Marigold! You ridiculous thing!....the absolute shining flower of the equine race! Rash, impulsive, vain.
Oh how much fun I had in the day: putting you into frenzy and then watching the chase!
Oh the hapless male!
Entertainment for weeks...ah." he said looking her over.
"You're going to do enough damage on your own without my help. Oh, bouquet of poison joke!" He stood in front of her. "In that position, who knows what he may think of you!"
He stopped and did a double take. "Though," he said looking her full in the face." there is something, different...that difference in Twilight and her friends, not so much in the others." he put his claw to his lip. "And another difference, something familiar... like the layering of an onion. I can't quite place it. "He put his paw to her ear and pulled out a hard boiled egg and began to munch. He then produced a seasoning shaker. "Paprika?" He offered to the splayed out frozen mare, held aloft by the fluff of her tail. Discord shrugged then laughed like a cub shaking the pepper pot near the mare's nose over the egg bite, it contents a natural blue with purple poke dots."...I'll figure it out latter, with your descendent, when they are of a more..."he finished the egg leaving crumbs everywhere clearing his throat. "...natural, weaker stock, of course...."He turned his back on her the look of shock on her face frozen, the guaranteed consequence of the inevitable rejection by or of her by the other.
"You....!On the other hand, "he looked to the stallion and charged, threading over like a wet noodle in a hurricane. "you're the variable. "He said still floating in the air, like smoke rings from a great grandfather's pipe.
He looked the stallion over: face, top of head and along his back.
"Nasty bit of work...traitorous!" he snarled. "What was Celestia thinking. Bringing a thing like you here?" He paced around him, starring through on contracted pupilled eye.
"What is so special about you?" his head snapped back to Marigold. "Or her?"
He looked back at the stallion and blinked, did he move? No, he chewed his lip. No not possible in freeze frame.
"How unclothe and unclean!" He snorted. "No matter how well Rose Water and her mares were able to clean you up, after the pegisus dive, and braid up your mane, in curls, you're still a scarreddy cat hiding in your wall...afraid of life! Viva!! Arriba!!!"he yelled in a voice that would have startled another pony, he though, still as stone."Oh you can't make me do anything Celestia! When they find me I'll be as still as a toad in a geode!"Discord imitated. "I mean, really! I can't think of what those mares possibly saw in you!" Discord shifted his head back and forth. "Well...who could blame the changeling queen, six stoat stallions in armor crossing her dominions...though Calcium Carbine, Brutus even Namis Watt would have been a better choice than you! Romane would have been interesting,quoting sacred texts/your sacred texts all the time, Ransom...ehhhhh....boring,loyal pointy head!"
He looked back at Marigold his neck extending into her face.
"Frankly my dear, you should be thanking me! Saving you from such a dog! No intimacy, making you wait, and then dumping four little ones on you! True you had practice with Constance, and help from Shambles or Stabbles her father's servant, but you had to raise these little ones yourself." He was in the mare's face. "And you just forgave him. Honestly! Have you no pride? Hi doormat! Walk on me anyone!At least you didn't have to raise a thestral, strong family values and support them." he went back to the stallion. "A dog like you! Saying things without thinking. Sleeping wherever, not until Celestia's suggestion."
He came close to the stallions face talking darkly. "What do the mares at this time see in you?
All those Unicar on the high walls watching you, this afternoon, considering YOU!
To much pressure as you noticed their eyes, their eyes from the high walls on you? Looking on you with that scary funny look all females get! Oh heart breaker, found you didn't like the attention? Eh?
You decided to act the pig: clomping through the mud, trough slurping, and headlong chocolate fountain and bonzi plant eating burping/farting...
All just to get back to your crack in the wall!"
"Oh come on! That's some great material! Keep up with the sight gags?" Sorry, this story is about Marigold.
"Marigold....hmp!"Discord huffed.
He turned back to the stallion. "I know why Glam Mare wanted you. Wanted that legacy that doctor of the court promised you, wanted you enough to drag you out to kiss you with forget me not, Mah, mah, mah!
Why didn’t she succeed?"
He looked him all over."What did Thunder Bilit or the Lady of the Lonely Gray tower see in you? You! Sleeping in the reeds under her sky, her cloud, with animals.
You sobbing like a foal, after the judgment of red cloud, or at the cracking of horns, when you stopped by drenched in dew, exhausted, messy, muddy, at her door, of her tower, to get out of the storm?
Not a clue it was by a pegisus upset about her figure."
His coils became tight and angry."But what did Ancient and wise, wise, Celestia see with her lamp held high over her head in the middle of the night looking over the rump of a sleeping runt pup like you?"
Discord produced an ancient and tattered scroll and continued his monologue. "As she wrote it. Hundreds of years ago!"he shivered as he ran his claw underlining the words.
"All that pain!
How mad,(as if I had intruded, as if she was the only with the right to remember you!) she was when she found me reading those tattered scrolls and her diary at this time.This forgotten piece of equestrian lore, leaving you: a smudged hoof note.
She turning as red as that vile of iron stained with salt crystals: that pendant of red tears I dangled in front of her face. Then she turned deathly pale, and bowed!
She bowed, to me!
Ruining my game!
My fun,mine!"
'Where there are tears, there is hope.'she said.
Hope, faith and love."Discord growled."Which virtue did you have when you faced me down Celestia?"
"That's why I had to come back...she's changed, you know, and it's all your fault!" Discord turned his back on the pony eying him over his shoulder. "But when I offered to fix it, she changed again!"
*'Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Everything has its time and everything ends.'this she said this to me!"Discord snorted.
"She was fun!
Now, she acts like..."he shuddered" a mother!"
"I'm the master of Chaos, I make Chaos!Choas is mine!I know where it come and where it ends!"he pined." I don't like this middle! This foggy center! I don't like it! Chaos, swirling about me, not me! Like a cloud. With an order in there...like something’s grinning at me, grinning at me from inside,laughing! Laughing at me!"
Then an awful grin filled his face.
"Well, she blamed you!Through the closed door she blamed you."He looked over the tatter paper,looking the stallion over again."You.Just a pony and you burned,burned before our Celestial majesty, our angel of the day our 'Oyasas of Equestria'!" He turned away and spoke puckishly.
"She asked you how it was, but you just turned to jello!"he said with smirk, burning eyes.
"Dying!
Dying at her feet, uncontrolled adoration from your mouth as , at last, you let out a horse's scream and fell shivering at her hooves! What would have happened next?
Would you have spontaneously combusted equaling the fires that consumed those strange ponies in the desert valley who wouldn't take your intersession or Celestia's pardon?
That would have something.That would have been true justice! That would have been satisfying!
But what did she do? What did she do?!!!"He turned into a characture of Celestia and wrapped his wings around the pony. "Live!" He squelched"Liiiive!!"He cried out mock mournfully.
He let go of the pony. "That look, especially Luna looking agast her face saying it all,'What did you do while I was away?!!' Almost made me consider not changing the fates." he smirked.
But his good mood flashed away."She said it again,'Where there are tears, there is hope.'"
He looked down at the stallion. ”I don’t think of any pony as thick in the brain as you!” He put his talents in a pinch to his cheek.”One little tinsy widle argument from your wife ! One slip of the tongue and you almost die again,”He was in the pony’s face again."Mr. Thick!! Mr. Thicketty, thick thick thick!” he relaxed. "If you had had wings now you would be almost to the ground before you did realize 'Gosh. I can fly.'"
”And just like before you almost died!
Because. You. Knew!
And then Sunshine saves the day!” he let out a sigh.
”But who could blame Maridold after all the things a clueless stallion like you did? No matter how many children you had!"
He backed up and shook his head. "Enough about a future as good as gone!” He pontificated. ”No. All of ponydom would be better off without you running about their dreams and genome!" He glared at the pony, who was, glaring back, resulting in a staring contest between the two, a battle of wills between a madman and a rock.
Discord broke eye contact, and turned. Discord took his tallent and elongated his face.
"What am I doing? Why am I spilling the beans! You are not my confessor! You can't see or hear me!"
In the back of his mind he ignored a voice that said,"Really?"
Discord sighed closed his eyes and rubbed his temples.
As Discord's head was turned, the pony seamed to blink. The "lids" like great darkness, ugly slits in them like a deranged cat or an earth dragon just after it fell from the sky, seeking healing food, fruit from a certain tree, stolen by the mate of a duplisate yahoo!
"Well." discord said turning back. "Time to get this started."
"Don't worry....you live out the rest of you days...alone...Maybe the thundering herds will cause enough chaos a might get released. "He smiled, putting his arm around the stallion’s barrel. "All that pain I'll be sparing you. No beatings. No exhausting climbs, no scars, no tears"He let go, bruises on the stallions sides attempted to follow the draconques as he withdrew, but the lumps, tendrils, failed and retreated back into the stallions sides. "just a pitiful, lonely bachelor, spending the last of his days trying to get back to the ordinary world!" He stood in front of him and cracked his tallens, reached out one talened claw. "We'll start by turning off all the hibitions."
Discord touched the pony's head, it pulled in his claw like quicksand.
There was the sound of thunder.
"You cannot do as you like, you were bought at a price...."it was voice !
Discord cried out as it pulled him in up to the elbow.
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."said the voice again. "From clay made He them: from the dust of the earth. From the dust they came to the dust shall they return."the voice rolled like thunder.
Discord struggled, two bruises on the ponies each side disapeared, finnally discord pulling out his hand free.
He noticed the tip of his finger, it was bruised. He shook it, it dripped down, like mucuse. Then it discolored, taking the form of a chain.
"No! Discord horrified."Not that world! Celestia what have you done! What have you brought into our wourld!"
The chain rattled like an insect then in long links it caught and wrapt him like a spider wraping a fly, Discord imobal and strugling his muzzle tightly closed the chain wound round and round like a gag.
"I know you as you know me!" said only a tightly grinning mouth."Did you think you would rid yourself so easily of us from the void," it wispered in his ear sickenly,"jigsaw little cub?"
Something began to form on his back, as it puffed up there was the sound of inflattion. At last the thing took the form of a monsterious wiggly mokey like thing, beedy eyes, thinning fluff on the top of its head a poor excuse for a mane, pale skin, thin lips jagged teeth wearing somekind of red unimorm that looked like long johns with a badge on his lepel the sybol for an anarcriss.
It was a hidious mockery showing his contempt and hate.
Discord tried to speak. But couldn't.
Couldn't hardly breathe.
The chain wound tighly like a muzzle.
"And after all this trouble I took for this form, I though you could be aprciative!Oh well.."he monster produced a straw."Let see what the fommy froth is like..."he popped the straw into discords head Discord merely glaring at him like an angry dog.
After a few sips the monster spoke."Ahh, my favorite straw...I like it because of the fizz! He tossed the straw."Pitty I can't read you fully."
Discord growled.
"Lousey plan by the way,lazy writing...just stop them coming together?I mean,for the master of chaos?What kind of plan is that? ...no. We can do better!"
He though for a moment."OOO!" he pulled out a sterio scope "All these wonderful memeories!"and began to look at the pictures on the slidding tongue."Where to start?" he threw it away with abandon."Make Luna darker...the myrter? Make Terik more violent? Stop Starswirl from becoming prominate, or better still use him as a vehicle to mount the heavens!" the rider laughed.
"I know!
Revenge!" He glared at the stallion discord had only moments before been interested in. "Go back...have his cave fall down and crush his bones!" He said this gleefully clenching his fist fire in his eyes.
"No, have to play the game the way I set it up, don't know what that will do, yet!"he sniffled. "No…ending him, that's too much like your's…even though you're me, just as she is me and he is me and Celestia and Luna and humans the sun the moon the sky and stars everything is me, it’s just me..."He said with a mad cackle.
"I will be original....do something different I haven't though yet, ooo change my timeline fight myself come up with a different outcome then I can debate myself over tea,"he said irrationally. "Then when I'm done, I'll make it the way I want. I'll have to ask myself why I did it this way, I already have a good answer, and I'll be surprised, maybe I know better in the future, teach myself a lesson!" He crossed his eyes looking like a true dullard.”What a wonderful game!” He laugh hysterically not happily but in anguish continuing to ly to himself a lie none could deliver him from."...what was I doing?" his head hurt he rubbed his temples.
"Yes! Bend Equestria to our will, establish a beachhead...then I can all come over and defeat myself!" Now the rider was a wrinkly general wearing a shining bowl like helmet. "Go back...bend the generations, where they're weak." He looked to Marigold. "Thwart His will, stop that radians in the face! It can't be natural...after all she is just a pony! It’s not like she has any kind of commonality to the one who created all! What a game I've made!"
He pulled back on the reigns of chain around discords mouth, making him rear."Go back when she is weak...then...one way or another ...."both he and Discord began to fade."Equestria will be minnnnne...."he was gone.
"Well. That happened!" Luna said from her moon.
"Shhh...."said another. "Don't interupt!"
Time began again.
Both Marigold and the stallion gasped a feeling as if an edit had occurred.
Marigold looked away and sneezed.
"Paprika?" she questioned in her mind identifying the elusive taste. Oh dear! What about her stallion.
He was stumbling a little talking nonsense, "I've never felt so lite before..."wonderful nonsense, but nonsense nonetheless. He lost the words again as his mouth opened and shut, like a guppy.
Disarmed: The venom gone.
He looked at her and was confused , pupils becoming pin pricks again, raise a hoof to his mouth. He couldn't take his terrified eyes off her bobbing his head up and down to get a three sixty view glancing rearwards as he backed up and away to gain distance, stopping at length.
Trying to find words again, he was floundering, like a sliding mountaineer floundering and clawing for a foothold to get away from an open pit or trap, being nervous, trying to hide what nature was having him do. His Eyes flitting between her body and face lingering more and more on the body and jumping back to the face, embarrassed deep red faced stallion as he attempted to rub face and neck only getting a mouth full of dirt, and a clount in the head rolling eyes, he began talking a million words a minute, afterward, under-breath confused recriminations and swearing. As he hit the ground with his front hoof a lite white streak across the nail, sign of healing.
"What?"she thought."Oh."
She had made herself more vulnerable than she had intended to be.I little more exposed than planned. It had lured him in further, further than she intended to draw him and he did not want to be drawn in at all. But moving might embarrassed him further.
"You are not...a...saint!"
She took this as a cue to move slowly covering herself with modesty so less was seen.
Wait. What?
She felt affronted.
"I'm just like you!" she told the stallion, glaring.
The words seamed to hang in the air and echo.
Where did that come from?
"Impossible!" fumed the stallion trying to act older and more mature than he actually was scrunching is face together for a moment, then relaxing before looking away.
"What a face. Serien, innocent and knowing...Very saintly."he thought with an insincere smirk."Like L'Inconnue de la Seine."he though sarcastically. "Hmp. Have you been sent to keep me from drowning?"
Smudgie Pie...is that any way to behave?"
"Who...?"The stallion thought."I...I know who! I can hear you."now afraid."I swear, no I haven't sworn!Not at all! I have not used your name in vain...have I?
Not since Glam Mare, not since I almost ended this world!"
"An offence forgiven, brought up, separates close friends.
I told you.
I solved that.
Don't bring it up again..."He changed the subject.
"How are you doing. How are your sides?
It was then the stallion realized"They don't hurt sir! How?...I saw him. Has he been cast away?
"Just a little blessing, a little break, just a rest from him, giving you two some privacy."
"No.No.No.No! You don't want me to...to..."He was shocked talking quickly."I can't believe you could be on their side! They kidnapped me! Put me in this form!"
"Are you hurting?"
He knew was talking about other places besides his sides."No..."
"Did this steward of the sun force you to do anything?"
"She imprisoned me!"he snorted "She took away my hiding place...."
"And I approve!"
The stallion made a sound of disbeilf and shock.
"You were threatening to stay in there and starve! What else was my servant to do, what could Celestia do? She is ruler here."
"You're not sugest I bow down, to this...this...monster..."his breath became quick.
"I never said that.
What I have said, 'To the rulers: respect, honor and treasure. Render unto Cesar what is Cesar's.' and 'By their fruits you will know them.'
You cannot point to one thing, done here that in any way makes her evil, nor her servants."
"I… don't… have… fingers… to… point… with…!" he said pointing with his hoof at every word, to make his point.
"You're doing well without them as I knew you would! " the voice teased. The stallion turned red.Otherwise I would not have let you come.
"No all her servants I approve.
In fact I commend them!
All Wishes who intercede for you, at the fire, who put a new cover on my book. That guard who waved the pegisi away and protected you. Ha. He even offered to introde you to his sister! I have found a wonderful mate for her. Doctor Puzzle who bandaged your hoof, got you a bag of sardines and cleaned up my book for you? He finds my book a wonder and has determined to understand all its secrets for the rest of his life!
"And this mare??!"
"She is also a good servant, as are you, so you know you are not alone, not to be left alone with the thing on your back... , a good steward, a Knight of my chessboard. I brought her to help you."
Marigold began to think.
"It’s a chess game Marigold, you have the advantage and you know what happens when you win? Check....
Marigold smiled.
Before she spoke, the stallion was thinking loudly in his head one word,"Help?"he repeated.
"...mate." spoke the mare a moment after the stallion thought the word through a brightly smiling cherub face.
She opened her eyes to a ears laid back, pupil shrunk googley eyed stallion with his mouth agape staring at her before shaking his head violently to get the mind thinking, putting out a last cloud of stone dust. She laughed, thinking how cute he was.
He considered how cute her laugh was, before reflecting on..."the horror!"
"NO.Nonononnono!" thought the stallion.
"Unclean!" said the Stallion grasping at straws pawing the ground."I have been placed in this unclean shell...."
"Do you really want to go there?
'Under the law judged by the law: None can keep the law!'
"Humans are special! You came into the world through humans."
"Women are special...
Without women civilization would fall apart. They have power...they have the power to say'no.' and have it done.
Most favored are women, I came into the world through a woman, oh man!
Most favored is Mary.
Yes, most favored are man because from there I came into creation. 'Goodwill towards man for unto us a Son is born.'
Most favored is my Son, because He was obedient and glad to volunteer for the prize of creation where he was sent by me, always with me, even before angels, even before space and time...when things moved at a word or a thought.
Only time He was ever away.....
Most favored are you because you believe.
Most favored is she also,
because she believe too!
'Do not say branches were broken off so I could be graffed in lest you be broken off so the the natural branches be regraffed.'
But untill man discovers there is other life in the universe I will let him continue to believe his definition of 'special', not including the planet.
Sol: Your world's solor engine rocketing through the universe! Such an ordinary star,still, her system corkscrewing merrily within the sin wave, the borders of her assigned worlds including yours, her wards, throwing them out and pulling them in again like aparent with her children, tredding the great dance of the galacitic plane, changing orbital declination with every burst of vitality ever so slight, that you being so small, can't detect.
Siding notes on a musical scale.
All this despit her'imperfections'.
And your world? It may not be a grand house, though well situated. Great veiw, tremendious!
Everybody goes there to look at the stars!
The stallion blinked.
"Only what you know and about the world, a very good 'guess'.
You don't have to think about that right now, but consider:
Its not like you have been so inocent: like your father Adam, stealing sardeens from that Doctor Pax Claw. He unbandaged your hoof and let you eat his sardines and hard tack!He forgave you! I have a griffon now! Sargant Captains who came and joined you both singing how you would eat the little fishes?"The stallion remembered how they sang, "I'm going to eat you little fishy!" "Till Doctor Puzzle drove you out to be cleaned of the mud from the Pegisus dive/fall/swoop" . The stallion shuddered remembering the stallions being carried off ." After Rose water and her friends helped clean you up?
Do you rember Little Dew Drop, it was just today. How she didn't judge you after you saw the devil and got you hot water, listened and obeyed when you to told her to stay away from you strange ponies?"He rembered telling Dew Drop not to leave her cloud high above making her promise, to swear, as they both heard Celestia yell 'Forever' from somewhere, far away."As a dragon breath and pegisi turned that vortex of fire, a tornado, awesome to behold, to warm and dry you as you rested on warm stones, you and your friends?"
The stallion remember the dragon, female making eyes at one of the ponies."Where is your mind? Back on subject."The stallion focused again on the voice." Maybe you'll see them later Imago Dei."
He changed the subjet." When dry, Rose Water brushed you and combed out the nits in your main?After I showed you why you must never take my name in vain, after you almost destroyed the world?
If they were a tyrant, you would pray: the peace of God and wise rulings.
You are being ruled by a large horse? You pray the same, asking for her to be guided in wisdom, (lest she do worse than bring twisted humans into her relm!)
If you were under the rule of a giant monkey..."the stallion turned red as he thought of those movies."You pray the same: for peace, healy and wisdom on Ceasar's brow!
Besides, can you really call Celestia evil when you saw her walk amoung the wounded, talk gently to them, rebuke the pegisi who had caused damage and intervene and wrap her wings around one to calm and bring that maddened stallion slowly to peace??" The stallion remember seeing Celestia enter that carale of gards to confront the poor screeming and charging fellow.
The stallion felt ashamed,"I'm sorry, please forgive me."
"Let me ask you something.Have you forgiven them?"
He swallowed and took a breath,"I forgive them...now."
"Glam Mare for what she tried to do?"
"Yes."
"Have you forgiven the guard, asleep against his spear, when she accosted you..."
"Of course."
"Have you forgiven the pegisi who made you hurt your hoof or the unicorn staring at you from the walls?"
The stallion said he had.
"How about all those ponies who frightened you when you first came here?"
"They didn't know...and I'll get new clothes."
"Good. I want you to be perfect."
A joke private between them, the stallion smiled.
"Now. What I ask is difficult. Can you forgive Celestia?"
The ponies head began to spin and he stumbled."I..."he swallowed, he wanted to scream and call her a witch."...I will put myself out, please help me."
"My Imago Dei, I will help..."and with that the rage and bile slowly was put to bed in his mind.
"Imago Dei is not my name." he said in a last, fading struggle of wills.
"To me you will always be Imago Dei, any that think and can speak and reason are imago dei, Children of eve."
"I'm sorry."
"I forgive you,"There was play in the voice."I'll let you two figure things out. Understand, I call you imago dei for a reason.
Rememeber: nothing is too much. I give whatever helps any need if any truely ask and seek."
Marigold could tell he was talking to himself, quietly mumbling. She closed her eyes and waited. Now that she thought about it, the murmurs were relaxing. She almost fell asleep.
There was quite, she open her eyes, he was staring again and had been staring at her for quite a long time. They looked into each other’s eyes a little long yet, till he broke eye contact again.
"Stop it!" he fumed "How would you like being ogled....?"He looked away.
She leaned sideways trying to get a good look at his face, trying to empathise.His eyes were closed and he was chewing his lip.
"Think. Think." he put his hooves to his head. "Whatever is true," and other things as he took a deep breath "Do unto others!" he said "I'm an/of imago dei....it is His will that I control myself in an honorable and holy manner not in passion..."He stood proudly erect head held high. Collapsing again, "putting hoof slowly to face, " Too much, too much, too much." as he slowly massaged his temple. He mumbled grumbled,
"Face!"
Marigold let out a startled chirp as he creid out.
"Imago dei....Face!" he said with a start that made them both jump. He forced himself to stare at her face, then winced till he settled down.
"Her face." He said licking his lips. "Look at the eyes that's where it is...."
"Not in passion. Huh. That would have been nice to know before that Airship, leaping on, Singing, 'I wanna hold and, and, annnnd from my dream.' Long fall that."" she thought, she looked back at him.
"I forgive you." he said startling her out of her thinking.
She decided to change the subject.
"I should feel flattered, never met a Stallion more interested in my face. Simple flower shop owner me."
"Oh...it’s not just the face it’s the mind, "the stallion said quickly waving one hoof around dismissively nearly falling over in proud declaration pronouncing great truth.
"The mind: that of reason/speech
Imago dei: made in His image, the mind that separates us from animal/beast!
Imago dei: made companion, breath of life into the lungs, first sparkle of the eye, first words out of the mouth after He first kis...."he hid under his mane and started to turn pink again."Many words..."he grumbled."Too many words, and not a wit in them!"
"Well timed."She smiled getting up."And like a good shop owner I'll use my mind."
"Good steed."she said."I forgive you too!" she responded big smile. Her eyes saying,"I know who you were just talking too!"
"Tell you what," She began a bargain through fluttering lashes as she walked past him turning around staring at his side, coming up on him,"oof,"stumbling. Recovering. ", if you can get away, in a race." her head and neck swung gracefully to moving her eyes forward till she had contact with the guards' eyes at the gate. "I will let you go." The grizzled guard at the gate nodded.
"Let me go?" said the stallion a little shocked, his eyes saying,"I don't even want to know how you know who I was talking to, but I know you know!"
"Free to go anywhere in Equestria you want. Free to go to the far edges to try and leave this world."she said in a husky voice.
"If I win, I never have to see you again?" His voice wasn't readable, but his mind was feeling the slightest upset of rejection.
"Uh hu." she said licking her lips. "Do we have a deal stranger?"
"I don't want to look shameful. We are to look are best for the female!"He straightened up his body again."Irrelevant thoughts! I do not acknowledge you!"He winced again, remembering the pains in his sides, straitening up to his height."Don't care! She certainly isn't smooth and her words aren't like honey....does she consider me a pound of meat like that awful beastly unicorn Glam Mare...?"he thought, keeping his jaw tightly closed though some mumbling did escape.
"It does say, if you are a slave you should try to buy your freedom."the stallion thought chewing his lower lip. "This is a good deal...Looking over his own body "I feel so strong! I don't think I've ever felt so strong!" He looked himself over "I am stronger. "He stood up tall."I am bigger! realizing "I can out run her! Outrun her grasp. Ha, I'll be so fast I won't have to find out!" but he forgot.
He forgot that the race is not always to the swift or strong.
"Deal." he said with a stern countenance upon his face.
In that moment, to the bearded old guards, they looked like a portrait Amour Gothic by Grain Wood, they couldn't help chuckle as Marigold nodded her signal.
They pulled the gates wide with gusto and the couple scrambled in a flash and away .
"Anddd, their off!" said the gaurd looking after.
"That is that.Who are we crossing of the registration?"
"Smudgie Pie."said the other satisfied.
"Ohhh him!
Celestia can't make me" the first smiled."I'll just isolate myself in this crack in the wall and die here The look on his face when he opened his eyes coved in dust. And to dust did that cave go, she did, to draw him out at her last gentle word!" he laughed.
"I'm my own free number! Whatever that means..."
"Soooo,"Said the other." should have Pie listed in the stud books at records?"
"Ka pth!" said the unicorn with his tongue and cheek."You could but why bother? Pie is such a common name."